{"id":17386,"date":"2025-02-18T23:41:51","date_gmt":"2025-02-18T23:41:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/?p=17386"},"modified":"2025-02-18T23:41:51","modified_gmt":"2025-02-18T23:41:51","slug":"donald-trump-signals-that-ukraine-should-hold-elections-as-part-of-russia-peace-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/?p=17386","title":{"rendered":"Donald Trump signals that Ukraine should hold elections as part of Russia peace deal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> \n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__content-sign-up-topic-description\">Your guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the world<\/p>\n<p><iframe class=\"article__content-sign-up-iframe close\" scrolling=\"no\" id=\"signUpIframe\" data-prev-url=\"\/register\/in-article-sign-up?ft-content-uuid=2506b4ae-52f3-4adb-9dd2-7f07a153316d&amp;newsletter-id=65b8fec772badb00166eafc6\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div id=\"article-body\">\n<p>Donald Trump has signalled there should be elections in Ukraine as part of a peace deal with Russia, in his first public remarks after the US held high-level talks with Moscow in Riyadh.<\/p>\n<p>In remarks critical of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy\u2019s handling of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/war-in-ukraine\" data-trackable=\"link\">war<\/a>, the US president said: \u201cIt\u2019s been a long time since we\u2019ve had an election\u201d in Ukraine. \u201cThat\u2019s not a Russia thing. That\u2019s something coming from me and coming from many other countries,\u201d he told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou have leadership [in Ukraine] now that\u2019s allowed a war to go on that should have never even happened,\u201d he added, comparing Ukrainian cities to \u201cdemolition sites\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese cities look like Gaza,\u201d he said, with \u201cmost of the cities\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009laying on their sides. The buildings are collapsed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The president did not mention Russia\u2019s role in destroying Ukrainian cities and towns during its full-scale invasion \u2014 the largest armed conflict on European soil since the second world war.<\/p>\n<p>Zelenskyy\u2019s term expired last year but Kyiv has said that it can only hold an election after the fighting stops and martial law is lifted.<\/p>\n<p>David Arakhamia, head of Zelenskyy\u2019s ruling party in parliament, said earlier this month that elections should not be held earlier than six months after martial law has ended.<\/p>\n<p>Holding elections would be a formidable challenge since millions of Ukrainians are displaced, living abroad or residing in areas under Russian occupation. Kyiv has also expressed security concerns around any polls, saying that western peacekeepers or a security force would be needed to ensure the safety of voters.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.iri.org\/news\/iri-ukraine-poll-majorities-believe-in-defeating-russia-support-recapturing-lost-territory\/\" data-trackable=\"link\">A survey<\/a> of Ukrainians conducted in September and October by the non-profit International Republican Institute found that 60\u00a0per cent of respondents were opposed holding a presidential vote during the war. Some 52\u00a0per cent said they did not support voting for a new parliament while the conflict was ongoing.<\/p>\n<p>There are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/d1afce58-6174-46c8-8853-7f1d9a05b5a6\" data-trackable=\"link\">widespread fears<\/a> in Kyiv and throughout Europe that Trump wants to settle the war on Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2019s terms. The US already appears to have made significant concessions to Putin by brushing aside Ukraine\u2019s desires to join Nato and restore its control over Russian-occupied land.<\/p>\n<p>Trump said he was \u201cmore confident\u201d of reaching a peace deal in Ukraine after the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/b427549b-65db-4918-b076-e4219bb6e74d\" data-trackable=\"link\">US talks with Russia<\/a> in Riyadh on Tuesday, which he thought were \u201cvery good\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, and Sergei Lavrov, Russia\u2019s foreign minister, led the delegations in a four-and-a-half hour meeting in the Saudi capital.<\/p>\n<p>Afterwards, they agreed to \u201clay the groundwork for future co-operation\u201d on ending the Ukraine war and a lightning normalisation of relations, after their first high-level talks on the conflict since Putin\u2019s invasion in February 2022.<\/p>\n<p>Zelenskyy said he had not been informed ahead of time about the talks, and has said Ukraine would <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/b2db1ab0-ab47-4cfc-ae9b-271d2a63692a\" data-trackable=\"link\">reject any settlement<\/a> that does not directly involve Kyiv. \u201cWe don\u2019t want a peace brokered behind the scenes without our involvement,\u201d he said. \u201cWithout Ukraine, peace cannot be achieved\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The US president also said he was \u201cvery disappointed\u201d that Ukraine was \u201cupset about not having a seat\u201d at the Riyadh talks, chastising Kyiv for not ending the war. \u201cWell, they\u2019ve had a seat for three years, a long time before that, this could have been settled very easily,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n<p>He also said he would support <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/0deac72a-b6bb-40be-baf6-6eee081cf18e\" data-trackable=\"link\">European peacekeeping troops<\/a> in Ukraine after the war, although Lavrov said on Tuesday that any European peacekeeping deployment in the country would be \u201cunacceptable\u201d. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf they want to do that, that\u2019s great. I\u2019m all for it if they want to do that\u201d and would \u201cnot object to it at all\u201d, Trump told reporters.<\/p>\n<aside aria-labelledby=\"aside-label\" class=\"n-content-recommended--single-story n-content-recommended--inset\" data-component=\"recommended\">\n<p class=\"n-content-recommended__title\">Recommended<\/p>\n<div class=\"o-teaser o-teaser--article o-teaser--small o-teaser--stacked o-teaser--has-image js-teaser\" data-id=\"6c9d0cee-43cf-47ee-8bb6-8e6a16fbd968\">\n<div class=\"o-teaser__image-container js-teaser-image-container\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/6c9d0cee-43cf-47ee-8bb6-8e6a16fbd968\" data-trackable=\"image-link\" tabindex=\"-1\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"o-teaser__image-placeholder\" style=\"aspect-ratio:2048\/1152\"><\/div>\n<p><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>He added that he did not want to pull all US troops out of Europe as part of a peace agreement. \u201cNobody\u2019s asking to do that, so I don\u2019t think we\u2019d have to do that. I wouldn\u2019t want to do that. But that question has never really come up.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As Trump hammered at the leadership of Zelenksyy he claimed that his counterpart\u2019s approval rating stood at 4 per cent.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/kiis.com.ua\/?lang=ukr&amp;cat=reports&amp;id=1466&amp;page=1&amp;t=1\" data-trackable=\"link\">An opinion poll<\/a> conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology in December found that 52 per cent of Ukrainians trusted Zelenskyy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI like him personally,\u201d Trump said of Zelenskyy. \u201cHe\u2019s fine. But I don\u2019t care about \u2018personally\u2019. I care about getting the job done.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Additional reporting by James Politi in Washington<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/2506b4ae-52f3-4adb-9dd2-7f07a153316d\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free Your guide to what the 2024 US election means for&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":17387,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","cs-entry","cs-video-wrap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}